“I fancy Papa Robin had gone out that morning to do the day’s marketing, after charging the younglings to stay quietly at home, and this daring little spirit had taken advantage of his absence to step out on their balcony and see the world for himself; then he must have become giddy and fallen under the rose-bush, where his Papa had found him, and not knowing what to do with his wee, wounded birdie, had flown to tell me his trouble.”
“Oh! Auntie, what did you do with the poor little thing?” cried tender-hearted Daisy.
“I made a soft cotton bed for it, in a little basket, and put it on a chair near my window, in the sun, then fed it crumbs of bread wet with wine.”
“Did it live, Auntie, dear?”
“Yes, children; and now for the wonderful part of my story. Every morning the parent bird used to make a visit, bringing in his beak to his sick birdie, a bit of caterpillar, a juicy worm, or a ripe berry. I grew very fond of my pet, and that I might know it, if at some distant day it should leave me, I wound a bit of silver wire about its leg. Birdie grew stronger and saucier, and its peep fuller every day. At last one bright morning—you may imagine my surprise—on entering the little sewing-room, to find my pet gone; and as I thrust my head out of the window, a loud burst of glad song, from the top of the old apple-tree, told me that birdie was—
“Safe, safe, at home.”
“Did you ever see the bird again, Auntie?”
“One morning, weeks afterward, I was in my usual place, and suddenly a bird appeared, from whose tiny leg dangled my thread of silver wire; lower and lower he descended without uttering a note, then something dropped upon the window-sill, and judge of my surprise, to find the very ruby ring I had lost in the garden some days before. I had mourned its loss, for it had been given me by your Papa’s own dear Mamma, on my tenth birthday. I had, for years, worn it on my watch-chain, and lost it whilst planting some seeds, as I supposed, in the mignonette bed. It might have been that the saucy robins had watched me, as I stowed away my seeds, winking their little eyes and bobbing their round heads as they marked their larder for the morrow. What a surprise to them, when, instead of a tiny seed, this bright jewel appeared. Some time after this, in my garden-walks, I found a few red and yellow feathers, a bird’s claw, and a bit of silver wire, which told the sad tale that my pet had been sacrificed by a strange cat.
“My story is ended. You have been patient little listeners for a full half hour, so, run away, dears, for a morning play.”